The Elder Thoughts

This past months I've been publishing almost only comic and book reviews, but I am actually doing more things related with miniatures and RPGs. First of all, I've been playing videogames more frequently; Steam sales and offers plus some awaited releases made me spend most spare time either reading or playing. Now that I've finished some games, I'm slowing the pace as I want to do more things, but my currently installed games say a lot about what I'll focus on. As can be seen in the following picture, I bought from an offer the Warmachine Tactics videogame, I was curious and I always welcome turn-based strategy games... but I haven't yet tried it so can't say how good or bad it is.

I still have some games pending finishing, including some really long ones like Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2 and Grim Dawn, but no need to hurry. I'm focusing one or two non-GW games at a time only, and sometimes I throw into the mix an arcade or console game. Lately Games Workshop is doing a great job on PC regarding licenses, and I've deleted from my PC classics like Space Marine or Dawn of War II, both of which I've finished multiple times, to not overflow, but I really like having so many options to play digitally. I've also preordered the incoming Space Hulk: Deathwing and will do the same with Dawn of War III as soon as it is possible. Exciting times ahead!

Regarding miniatures, I've assembled every pending miniature I had and base primed a lot, but didn't painted much until recently. Now I am painting, mostly:

Imperial Knight: Only remains a few details and the base decoration (dead chaos space marine bits) and the decals

Rogue Trader era Space Marine: I found this miniature ordering an old box. While it is hard to highlight it with my crappy skils and the mini's lack of detail, I'm working on it

Nagash: A while after it came out, I bought the new awesome Nagash figure plus some undead warriors to decorate the base, but it was waiting (not even fully assembled) for me to decide to paint it. I started last week by priming it and right now I'm paiting the spirits, but my goal is to focus on fully painting it before starting with another mini. And without taking months to do it.

I might also retake painting Necrons, as they are quite easy and fast to do, but not until the lord of the undead is done. And about other miniatures than Games Workshop's, I finished painting two small lead witches as a small gift for my girlfriend, one green and one violet. Nothing impressive but was good for a change.

And that's mostly all, I keep reading but right now still going through a lot of pending comics before retaking Horus Heresy novels.

I had this comic, Joker stashed and forgotten, this is why I'm now reading things I have before buying anything new, at least until there's some free space on the shelves. Anyway, coming back to the comic, I wish I had read before this Brian Azzarello comic, as now The Dark Knight movie gets even more meaning and I understand from where comes the excellent joker portaited at the film. An apparently "cured" Joker is released from Arkham Asylum and, as you would expect, soon starts to wreak havok at Gotham, especially to the criminal organizations. In fact, Batman appears just in the last pages, the whole comic is dedicated to the clown arch-enemy. And how well it is represented, pure chaos, violence for the simple reason of violence itself, revenge that can't be bargained or reasoned with... A Joker that just wants to create chaos and has fun doing it.

Excellent drawing and coloring, good dialogs... A must read if you enjoy Batman comics, and double time if you also enjoyed the 2009 movie.

I finished reading Ronin, 6 issues miniseries from 1984 written by Frank Miller. The story begins with a samurai who fails to save his master from being killed by the demon Agat, who desires a magical sword carried by the samurai master that, once "consumes" blood, can kill almost every being, including the demon itself. After a fight the samurai will become a ronin and gets cursed to be held inside the sword alongside the demon.

In the future, in a wasteland New York, the Aquarius company has a biocircuitry complex in which it is developing tools and machinery that could save the world from wars. Billy is a limbless boy that is instead very powerful in telekinetic powers, being taken care about by Virgo, the artificial intelligence that manages the Aquarius "building". Billy starts reviving in nightmares the ronin events and... the spirits of both the ronin and the demon get loose in the world again.

I don't want to spoil more of the plot but just with the previous paragraphs you can glimpse it. Cyborgs, demons, samurais and shootings, all mixed in a pretty good drawing and interesting story, with of course lots of gore and action. Another "I don't know what I'm going to find out but I trust Miller" case that had a happy ending. Recommended if you like sci-fi action comics.

Master of The First is a short story, available both in book and audiobook formats. After The Lion has gone with most of the Dark Angels forces, the ones that stay at Caliban with Luther are dividing between those that support the decision, and those who begin to think they've been left away and things should't be that way.

Melian, a space marines captain, goes to speak with former chapter master Astelan about his reserves on how some fellow about how the Calibanite marines speak of those coming from Terra, to warn him and try to find some help regarding this seemingly rebels. Will he find some help?

Short, but as most Dark Angels stories interesting due its plot, so that should make you decide if worth it or not.

I just can't stop reading the Horus Heresy books, having recently finished the third book, Galaxy in Flames. In it, the Warmaster Horus is already corrupted and plans an attack to Isstvan III, in theory to crush some humans who are fanatics. But there's more than meets the eye, as the attack seems too big for just some rebels and not every space marine is going to drop to the planet surface to fight...

At this book the "new" chaotic Horus reveals himself (and those loyal to him) and the first space marine vs space marine fights happen. The story arc progresses and there are interesting events, although I felt that the book extends a bit too much certain fragments and the main theme progresses slower than in past books. In any case, interesting reading, especially as the four chaotic powers start to shape.